The House of York
Loutherbourg earned considerable success in the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture before moving in 1771 to England, where he became a prolific designer of theater sets as well as a history painter. He also produced several drawings representative of noble houses for David Hume’s History of England (1790s). In this dramatic still-life composition, illustrating the House of York, he scattered the anatomical fragments of an armored knight among symbols of the ill-fated York family, including a white rose and the heraldic boar of King Richard III, who died on the battlefield during the War of the Roses in 1485. The white tragedy mask in the foreground alludes to Shakespeare’s 1592 play Richard III and to Loutherbourg’s own connections to the theater.
Artwork Details
- Title: The House of York
- Artist: Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg (French, Strasbourg 1740–1812 London)
- Date: 1796
- Medium: Pen and brown and black ink with brush and brown and gray wash over graphite underdrawing
- Dimensions: 12 x 9 5/8 in. (30.5 x 24.4 cm.)
- Classification: Drawings
- Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1969
- Object Number: 69.572.4
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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